HR trends 2023 – Tribune by Thomas Chardin

The destruction of the future

In recent years, we have probably been played with. Practices that seem a little utopian to us have become completely practical. The remote meeting is a luxurious and uncomfortable gadget, it has become the default solution (without having to have too much comfort). Events that seem to us possible but unlikely happened such as a global pandemic. Others that seemed unlikely to us unfortunately came true in an armed conflict on the 20th^e century as a whole 21^e, with all the erratic economic consequences that come with it. Not to mention the slow sting that the climate change gradually planted in our conscience.

Suffice it to say that all the consultants who have been shouting for years about their rhetoric of growing uncertainty and the unpredictable future are startled awake in their armchairs, surprised that it was right. HR teams, managers, employees sitting quietly on the edge of the field of possibilities, saying to themselves “well, I’ll explore this tomorrow”, find themselves rushing into the middle of said field, learning in the need for rapid handling of innovations in which they speak easily but in which they practice little.

HR Tech, 100% techno, 100% human

HR Tech is the fantastic world where this dialectic of the possible, the real and the desirable is played out. This prompted us to create, together with CloserStill Media, a new HR event dedicated to technological innovation applied to human resources and management: HR Technologies France. This is also what prompted us to open our HR Trends Book on the theme of HR Tech, the first milestone of a journey in 10 themes through future of the company.

A figure we quoted in Cahier gives a measure of the extent and speed of change: companies used an average of 8 Saas applications in 2015, they are now acting… 110 (Sopra HR-L’barometer Digital Factory) . There are several developments behind this simple figure. This indicates the dazzling development of 2^e dematerialization – from local server to shared server. It also heralds the spread of digital innovation in the company – and HR has a key role to play in this. But it also indicates the dispersion of the offer, announcing a possible movement of regrouping, integration, creation of meta-tools.

Nothing too unusual, in itself: this is the normal breath of change. But behind this movement, there are women and men who simultaneously seek to push the limits of technology and answer real questions in HR. L’HR innovation has long resulted from an unexpected encounter between researchers who wondered what they could do with their discovery and companies willing to invest in prestigious modernity. What strikes me, both in the columns of our Cahier and in the profiles of HR Technologies participants, is the prevalence of truly integrated personalities and teams, with a real understanding of organizational challenges and technological solutions. . L’arrival belong to those who will truly know marry the human and the digitalboth in everyday life and in strategic thinking.

HR with 100 faces

This is because each of the issues discussed by start-ups of digital HR refers to the many dimensions of organizational transformation. If we go back to the chapter headings of the HR trend book, employee experience uses different solutions to organize feedback (in both directions) and meet expectations expressed by employees. HR innovation, of course, relies heavily on Tech, though it is not limited to it. The employer brand it needs data to know its internal and external market and tools to format and communicate its message.

The quality of life and working conditions maintains an ambivalent relationship with Tech: it monitors its adverse effects and uses it to combat them. The recruitment uses the power of artificial intelligence on the amount of available data to aid hiring decisions and make them more efficient and fair. The CSR burn all the technological wood to build participatory processes, integrate more and reduce the company’s environmental footprint. The training manager mobilizes the full battery of Learning Techs to measure and develop the skills employee – if soft skills, new trades or updates. He also handles digital andartificial intelligence to recreate theeducational engineering in the service of more personalized, varied and relevant training. These movements converge towards the transformation of work organizationwhich occupies the last chapter of our Cahier and constitutes both the objective and the synthesis of all these changes.

However, this linear structure is only one path among others. The complexity of the questions facing humanity today exceeds the capacity for understanding and abstraction of an isolated individual. This is one of the developments that plagues our time. The answer is incollective intelligencein connection with, to integration of knowledge and skills. One thing is certain: in front of the human wealth that we had the good fortune to meet at the first Cahier de Tendances RH, faced with the diversity of experts and innovators that we had the pleasure of meeting at the HR Technologies show, it is difficult not to say ourselves that we live in a truly unique and exciting time.

About the Author

Specialist in Human Resources and Marketing, Thomas Chardin is the founding director of Parlons RH, an agency specialized in editorial and digital marketing, dedicated to HRDs and their partners (HR service providers, recruitment and HR consulting firms, HRIS editors, HR start-ups, etc.). He is also administrator of Lab RH, director of the conference program of HR Technologies France, author and lecturer. Agency Let’s talk about HR is co-organizer of HR Technologies France and editor of the first Cahier de Tendances RH.